My family LOVES the Prodigies Music Program, and now through Cyber Monday you can get the Lifetime Membership for 40% off! Plus a FREE BONUS (see below!). Plus an EXTRA 5% off when you use code LMJ.

The Lifetime Membership means you get online and downloadable access for your entire family to the entire program: from Preschool Prodigies (a great place to start, even for early elementary students) to Primary Prodigies to Recorder Prodigies (and whatever they come out with next!), including their Holiday videos and sheet music, all of their music books and workbooks (in e-book format), the Prodigies Melodies videos and sheet music, a complete scope and sequence, and fantastic customer support through their website and a Facebook group.

And, just in time for Christmas, they’re throwing in a FREE BONUS: the new Holiday Songbook!

If this resonates with you (pun intended), head on over and grab the Lifetime Membership for your family! And don’t forget to use the code LMJ to take an additional 5% off! But remember, this 40% off deal is only good through Cyber Monday!

This colorful program has my kids singing solfege with hand signs, translating between solfege and the number or letter names of the notes, and applying that knowledge to playing a very accessible instrument: their desk bells! On top of that, all of what they’re learning now builds smoothly into learning to read music (eventually without the color-coding system). When my kids decide what instrument(s) they want to learn to play in the future, I know that the music theory they’re learning and the ear training they’re receiving from the Prodigies Program will give them a great foundation and a ton of confidence!

It’s a great fit in our homeschool, but it can also be a fantastic supplement to a private or public schooler’s music education!

For more information:

You can see reviews plus a great overview of all they have to offer on the Prodigies website.

October 31st is usually just another day for our family. At times, when we lived in a city neighborhood, we’ve passed out candy and gospel tracts to costume-clad visitors at our door, and other times we have happily forgotten the sugar-coma-inducing festivities of the day all together.

We’ve also not necessarily done much in the past with the notable historical event that took place on this day. We’ve recognized it as Reformation Day, and perhaps shared a “Nailed it” meme for laughs, but we’ve never, you know, dressed our two boys up as Luther and Calvin.

But today, October 31, 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of the day Martin Luther famously drove the nail that cracked Europe—and mainstream church history—forever.

This seems to call for more than just the usual nod. Cosplay may not be necessary, but a deeper consideration of its importance certainly is.

As a history major in college, I took particular interest in two very world-changing narratives: the World War II era and church history. Having studied the Reformation in some depth over ten years ago (ahem, yes, it’s been a while!) and consequently having forgotten many of the details, now has seemed as appropriate a time as ever to refresh myself on the subject, especially as I have considered how to teach my children about it and determine what celebrating the Reformation looks like in our family.

As I’ve dusted off a few of my college texts, done some reading online, and discussed the subject with my husband, I’ve refined my thoughts and priorities when it comes to understanding the Reformation and passing on that understanding and perspective to my children.

Guiding Principles of our Discussion of the Reformation

Most of us know that the first three rules of buying a house are “Location, Location, Location”. Similarly, the first three rules in rightly understanding history, the Scriptures, or anything we learn by written language are “Context, Context, Context”–both textual or historical. The Protestant Reformation was in no way a stand-alone event. One of my college texts is called Europe and Its Reformations, plural, because it seeks to demonstrate the continuum of social, political, and religious “reformations” surrounding the events of Luther’s life. Despite the obvious fact that Luther’s actions and teachings set off a figurative bomb that changed the landscape of Europe forever, neither church nor political history were homogeneous, unchanged, or unchallenged before 1517. And as we are probably more aware, neither did they remain so after the fact. There have been throughout history pockets of believers, often persecuted, holding to the true gospel before the posted paper at Wittenberg, just as there were other movements from within the Catholic Church seeking to reform it, as well. I believe it’s important that my children understand from the beginning that Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses and the Reformation they sparked didn’t take off in a vacuum. Rather, in God’s providence and by His grace, Luther was at the right place at the right time to shed light on prevalent errors and bring the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone into mainstream discussion.

Connected to this idea of context, it’s important to remember that Catholicism isn’t the same today as it was in Luther’s day. Seeing the reformation sparked by Luther’s Theses as one of many efforts to reform the Catholic Church and/or Christianity and discussing this fact with my children will (I hope) help them to grasp that ideas, institutions, and people change over time. I want them to be able to have meaningful conversations with their Catholic friends because they have some understanding of what Catholicism is today. In the United States of America. To this end, we watched a video covering the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. It was mostly over my kids’ heads, since they are only 8- and 6-years-old, but we paused the video when necessary to discuss and understand along the way. I hope I can instill in them a desire to ask questions to get to know what others believe and not merely spout off what they think they understand from one video they watched and a handful of discussions they had with their parents. I have a hunch this will be a long process…

For laughs. Both in what this depicts and in how poorly depicted it is.

As the picture above seeks to humorously remind us, while technologies and power structures change, mankind is very much the same throughout the centuries.

Getting a bit more practical now, primary sources are a great way to look more directly into the past. And they’re not just for college history classes! Here are a few we’re using with our elementary-aged kids: the book of Romans (which the Lord used to bring Luther to the understanding of salvation by faith); quotes from Luther himself, particularly a few lines from his Ninety-Five Theses and his defense at the Diet of Worms; and Luther’s hymns “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” and “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word”. As our kids get older, it’s my aim that we’ll look more into Protestant, Catholic Church, and political documents and counsels, among many other sources and including many other key players and precursors to the Reformation.

As we engage with several kinds of source materials, I want us to remember that bias is ever-present and history is never simple. While we can see glimpses of the hand of God weaving together the events of time into the meta-narrative tapestry of His choosing, we can only ever see a few of the threads at a time. So we should be humble with our own narratives, recognizing that God’s truth doesn’t depend upon me spinning the events in a way that I think is favorable. A single group’s human narrative can be helpful, but only if it recognizes it is incomplete. (Yes, this definitely has application to the current state of upheaval in our society today.)

Confession: Luther isn’t really on our list of personal favorite Christian heroes. He did some really great things and God clearly used him mightily for His purposes. But my husband’s favorite heroes of Christian history are the faithful, quiet plodders—you know, the type of people who aren’t flamboyant or famous enough to have a day set aside to celebrate them—and who maybe don’t ever make it into the history books. This is a pretty good personal antidote to our world’s (and often the church’s) emphasis on “changing the world” and “doing big things”. So often it’s difficult to see the line between godly motivation and mere self-promotion and glory-seeking. Those of us who recognize this do well to slow down and consider the lowly servants of Jesus throughout the ages, or those who played a support role to the “main actors” on the stage of church history. I’m thankful that my husband is leading our family in valuing the faithfulness that sometimes only God can see. It’s spiritually healthy, and it’s right.

While our family certainly doesn’t care to over-emphasize Luther’s heroism, his stand for truth and for conscience is an example to be admired. We may never find ourselves in such a life-or-death test for our faith or our trust in the Word of God as when Luther stood before the Diet of Worms in 1521 and gave his most famous declaration. But we nevertheless need courage on a daily basis to do what is right, to share the gospel of grace, to serve and love the lowly, to choose faithfulness in the small things no matter the outcome, to say no to delusions of grandeur or inclinations toward comfort and safety that would bring us to self-preserving, self-exalting compromise and complacency. Luther’s legacy is not only in the truth he taught, but in the courage he had to “stand, and … do no other.”

We’ve selected a few children’s biographies to read this morning along with singing hymns and possibly watching a movie on the subject this evening as a family. But more even than the particular books we read or the media we consume are the discussions we have as a family. Discussions of what the gospel, or good news, of salvation in Jesus is—and has been from the beginning. Discussions of how the Catholic Church was in error in the past and which of those errors have been abandoned and which have been maintained to this day. Discussions of error on the other side of the line and how we each must seek to faithfully follow the Word of God, being willing to stand even amidst pressure from “our own” institutions. Discussions of how we should treat those with whom we disagree (hint: we like the example of Jesus and His disciples better than that of either the Catholic or Protestant state-churches! Eek!). Discussions of how we can see God’s hand at work throughout history—preserving His word and His people, using imperfect men and women to accomplish His purposes, and His provision for the gospel to spread to the ends of the earth—to every tribe and tongue and nation. These discussions contain far more than mere information—they include love for the Lord, for His word, for others, and for our children themselves as we help them understand their own place in the line of history and the world of people and ideas.

While much more could be said (and probably has been said elsewhere in this vast space called the internet), I hope these limited thoughts of mine have been coherent enough to be a thought-provoking blessing to you today as you contemplate the Reformation and remember it with your family, friends, or church.

And as for costumes, I think my kids might currently be more interested in dressing up as Calvin and Hobbes than Luther and Calvin. And I think I’m ok with that.

In closing, I’ll leave you with the Five Solas of the Reformation, because I didn’t manage to fit them in anywhere else and it seemed wrong to leave them out:

In this review I’ll give a bit of history as to how we decided on the Prodigies Music Program for our kid’s education, a discount code for my readers, and then some examples of how our kids have benefited from the program over the past nine months! This post contains affiliate links, but I’ve been promoting Prodigies to friends long before signing up as an Ambassador–you’ll see some of the reasons why I believe in it so much in this post.

My husband and I both love music. And we love sharing it with out kids. But it’s hard to find the time to introduce them to the basics of music theory with my husband’s busy work schedule and the fact that I’m already teaching them every other subject in our homeschool.

We looked at local general music classes, and probably would have gone that route if we hadn’t found Prodigies. We sampled the videos they made available for free on YouTube, and I was impressed. So impressed that after crunching numbers and comparing our options, we bought the Lifetime Membership for our family.

We paid one price for the whole family for life–within just one year of weekly local classes for two children, we would have paid the same amount for FAR less instruction. This would be even more economical for a larger family.

We can do music lessons every day in the comfort of our own home–this again ups the amount of instruction and guided practice, allowing kids to go deeper and practice regularly without mom having to muster up the energy or having to waiting on the next class day to roll around.

We have access to all the materials (videos, workbooks, songbooks) both online and as downloadable files for our computer. This means I have an awesome curriculum (and my kids have a fun music teacher!) available any time it fits our needs or schedule.

While I’m sure the local classes are nice, they aren’t using the Prodigies program–which is colorful, engaging, and focuses not only on meaningful play with pitch to train a child’s ears, but also on learning to translate between the color names, number names, letter names, AND solfege names of the notes of the major scale. Most teachers wouldn’t dream that teaching all of this at such early ages is possible. But it is! Mr. Rob does it! And my kids are getting it!

The team at Prodigies Music is constantly adding to their program, which means that the money I put down for our membership goes farther and farther. They now have a complete preschool program (what my kids are working through now), have started publishing lessons in the primary program, have tons of fun supplemental videos in their Melodies series, and are now rolling out lessons for the recorder.

Finally, here’s some of the benefits I’ve seen in my children over the past year that we’ve been using Prodigies.

My kids can translate easily between solfege, color, number, letter names, etc. This is something I never knew how to do despite participating in choir as a kid.

They are learning the names of chords and what notes are used to build them.

My husband can pull out his guitar and the kids can pull out their bells and play together because they’ve memorized the melodies of a handful of songs. It’s a family jam session!

The kids are learning to sing on pitch in a friendly, non-embarrassing environment.

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’ve seen so far is that my kids are not intimidated by music. Or any instrument. Though their practice at home so far is only with the desk bells and hand-signs, they have internalized the concept that music is made up of notes–notes which they have learned to call by name. So all they have to do when they walk up to an instrument is figure out where the notes are, and then they can play any of the songs they’ve learned! The boys will eagerly plunk out a melody on a piano whenever one is near–with no fear whatsoever. While at a family member’s house, they spotted a harp and asked how it worked. With no more instruction than “The strings are notes on the scale,” my eight-year-old guessed that the red strings were Cs and began to play the Imperial March from Star Wars. On the harp. When he’d never touched the instrument before. And while some instruments like violin are inherently more difficult to play, my kids have also fearlessly picked them up and guessed at what notes they hear when they scratch away at the strings. Point being:

The pump has been primed (and will continue to as they acquire the ability to read music from their Prodigies lessons) to have such an intuitive understanding of music that when we do sign them up for instrument-specific lessons down the road, they will be able to focus on the mechanics because the understanding will already be there.

Beyond all of this, they are learning to both understand and enjoy music. And when you understand something, it’s a lot easier to love it, and when you love it, it’s a lot easier to want to learn and understand it more. Thus, with Prodigies, our kids are being equipped for a literal lifetime of learning and enjoying music.

I hope this review has been helpful! Check out the Lifetime Membership at the Prodigies site, and don’t forget you can use the code LMJ to get an extra 5% off your Lifetime Membership PLUS 5% off anything in your cart–like the bells, or hard copies of workbooks or songbooks.

Many of the public schools in our area started back yesterday, and so did we.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you might be a little confused since I posted about our “First Day” back in July.

That would be the first of my confessions.

I thought that in the middle of all of our remodeling craziness it would be a good idea to re-institute some order by starting back to school. We made it a whopping four days before a trip and life in general took over again.

So yesterday was technically something like day five (or six if we’re counting the immersive day of water color painting last week–hey, I’m counting it!).

I’m just thankful that my husband encouraged me not to worry about it. Now that the living room is, well, livable again, we can start to throw some school into the mix.

His support has been invaluable since we would, in theory, like to have our kids keep going with at least math and reading through the summer months. I planned to just take June off, and keep a bit of review going even on break, but it stretched into an extra month-and-a-half and our review became non-existent.

And it’s ok. Really, Lauren, it’s ok.

But those scheduled intentions are just surface-level. I’ve got some deeper issues to confess, as well.

This is our fourth year of officially homeschooling and yet I have felt less prepared than ever. I gave up on a traditional homeschool planner this year, opting to build my own system for planning and record keeping (a combination of Plan Your Year, a bullet journal, and clipboards for the kids). I hope to share some reviews, articles, and videos about it sometime soon once the dust clears and the wires are all rigged up in our remodeled office/studio. But the process has been like stepping out on an invisible floor, hoping there is something to stand on when you land.

Unlike Indiana Jones, however, on our first day of school yesterday, instead of finding a firm footing, I literally slipped on the slick, wet front steps, finding that gravity still works and that landing your rear on the corner of the step an entire foot lower than your feet began makes for a very purple derriere and quite a stiff and sore neck.

This didn’t exactly quell my fear of more figurative slips. Again I’m reminded of the only truly firm footing I have in the first place–and that gives me strength to press on.

I know that the end result will be a good one–having a completely customized system that meets our needs better than any pre-fab planner ever could. But with a new arrangement on paper comes a new arrangement of habits–both mental and physical–and building those habits takes time. I need to have patience with the process, trust that it will be worth it, and simply recognize the little adjustments that have to be made along the way as a part of what makes it better.

All of that said, our first day went wonderfully well! My well-laid plans did pay off!

At least, before lunch.

Our first day of school started well but ended woefully.

In my planning I took into consideration the longer-than-ever-time-off from which we would be recovering, and I tweaked our curriculum accordingly–especially math. My big boy would do only half of the worksheet. My youngest would copy numbers, do some basic math facts, and then we’d play a math game. The almost-six-year old finished his work in no time, blazing through math, reading, and copy work so he could go to town with his beloved watercolors the rest of the morning.

I was thrilled. This was easy.

The just-turned-eight-year-old, however, struggled to focus. His work certainly should have taken longer than his little brother’s, but it drug on and on and on needlessly. I told him time didn’t matter, that he didn’t need to set a timer, just work diligently. But he set the timer anyway and then stressed himself out with it. Long story short, he was anything but diligent, even when I gave him breaks to go outside or read and then come back to it with a fresh mind. His score in the end was near perfect, but it was well into the afternoon before he finished and then there was language arts to do.

I was patient for the morning. But eventually my patience ran out.

I had planned fun activities for our afternoon. A game, read-alouds over Afternoon Tea. Things my children LOVE.

But a dawdler was messing up my plans to do him good.

I escaped into my own projects and spent some time online to boot.

“I’ve tried to help you. You won’t be helped. I’m done.”

Signing off. Checking out. On day one.

Bravo, Lauren.

Over dinner my husband asked us each how our day had gone and how we felt about it. There was good, there was bad, and there was ugly. But it was good to get it out in front of us as a family.

He sweetly encouraged me not to base the success of my day on other people’s performance–especially little people. Control what I can control–my own responses.

That’s hard, isn’t it? But it’s exactly what I needed.

After further consideration and prayer last night, I realized that I had judged my childrenworthy of my time and patience during the morning hours–I had even decided this long in advance. It’s my job, after all, as their mom and teacher. But with one child dragging his half-sheet of math work beyond any reasonable time frame, and with the other testing my patience at lunch time, I came to judge my children as unworthy of my time and patience for the rest of the day.

Forget my God-given role as their mother and teacher, I measured them against my plans and expectations, found them wanting even after patient instruction and care, and since I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted, I decided they didn’t deserve my effort–I decided I needed a break.

There is wisdom, at times, in walking away from a situation so that both parties can get fresh air, deal with what’s in their hearts, and come back in much better spirits. But I can’t say that was what was going on this time. I was resentful. And it took ME “beyond a reasonable time frame” to get my heart right.

Math work or heart work, my son and I were both taking too long to learn our lessons.

I suppose I could steal a quote from my reflections on planning above since it seems to fit this character-growing, relationship-building process, as well:

“…building those habits takes time. I need to have patience with the process, trust that it will be worth it, and simply recognize the little adjustments that have to be made along the way as a part of what makes it better.”

As I wrestled with my own bad response–with my sin–the Lord kindly reminded me of His love and patience toward me as His child. I cowered at the thought of His great love and my great lack.

Father, You chose to love me while I was yet a sinner when You sent Jesus to die for me. And You choose to love me still even when it takes me years to learn a lesson, even when my attitude and actions are quite like a distracted and unruly child.

Because You have chosen to love me, because You have made me Your child, Your patience and Your love never wane…like mine so often do for my own children.

Forgive me, Father. I repent.

Thank You for being a GOOD Father. My need for Your love and patient correction is ongoing. And the work You’ve called me to do for my children is ongoing. Oh, please produce in me the same patient, diligent love with which You parent me.

I saw yesterday morning that I could choose to be patient with my children. But O how I need Your Spirit, Lord, to choose to be patient even beyond my good intentions! When my planned patience wears out, show me Your patient love, and please help me to then pass it on to them.

Amen.

For those of you who also started school recently, I hope your first day fared better than mine (and you should read that as “I hope that your patience lasted more than four hours”).

But it’s just the first day. And it’s now behind us. Sins repented of, mercies new this morning …and every morning hereafter. We’re in this for the long haul, aren’t we? Let’s do it with patient love, remembering the One who continues to lavish us with it.

Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase through that link, I will earn a few pennies, nickels, and dimes. I only link to products I would happily recommend even if no compensation were possible. 🙂

Our family doesn’t completely follow the Ambleside Online (AO) free curriculum, but we pull heavily from it for our book list, among many other things.

One of those other things is their Nature Study schedule. If I want to pick a particular topic of nature study for us to focus on for a while, why not start with their suggested schedule and tweak it along the way, if need be? This way there is less choice-fatigue for me and I can find some community around what we are studying, whether with other AO families I know in real life, on the AO forums, or on the Facebook group.

This summer and fall is for the birds, so I’ve been doing a bit of research and collecting materials that will prepare me to assist and inform my children in their own observation and enjoyment of our feathered friends over the next several months.

I’ve seen a lot of materials for purchase on the interwebs, and many of them were quite tempting, but I wanted to see what was available to me for free before punching in credit card numbers.

First, I searched my own shelves.

We already own the Handbook of Nature Study, which will serve us for many years and topics to come, making the purchase price slim over the long haul.

Birds are covered on pages 27-143. The pictures are not the most impressive, but this book is chock full of information so that you, the parent, can be a literally walking resource for you children on the trail. Types of birds, parts of birds, migration of birds, lessons with suggested questions, pictures, diagrams, and even related poetry are included. I plan to read this section for my own knowledge and make a few notes on particular questions or topics to raise while I’m out with the kids.

Remember, the purpose of Nature Study is to get the child in touch with the world and creatures God has made and to enjoy it. The Handbook of Nature Study is NOT a textbook of information you have to cram into your precious children’s little heads. It’s a tool to aid the work of observation that the kids ought to be doing and delighting in on their own.

I found another volume that I may reference over the next few months: Living with Wildlife: How to Enjoy, Cope with, and Protect North America’s Wild Creatures Around Your Home and Theirs. I don’t think there’s much to say about this book now since the title is so descriptive! We found this gem at a library cast-off sale for probably about 50 cents.

The point here isn’t so much that any of you need THIS book, but that if you keep your eyes open, you may find something similar. If I didn’t have the Handbook of Nature Study, this book (or some other like it) would suffice quite nicely. Birds are covered on pages 180-252, if any of you by chance come across this guide or find it at your library. There aren’t so many pictures or diagrams, and it’s not aimed at teachers or parents to instruct their children, but the information is valuable and would do the trick of providing a parent with both a general and some specific knowledge of birds.

It’s a narrative introduction to all kinds of birds, with animals talking and acting consistent with their particular habits and personalities. Each chapter covers a different bird, and we may just read one here and there for fun if we’re interested.

My mom gave us a laminated Pocket Naturalist Guide of Arkansas Birds for Christmas several years ago. This guide isn’t particularly detailed, but it does provide color pictures of a variety of birds, including their Latin names, size, and an occasional special note. Listed on the back are bird viewing areas and sanctuaries, as well as a state regional map.

For very young children, a laminated field guide is almost a necessity! Even when they can’t read, they love feeling like real explorers with a guide in their pack that they can pull out at will. And you as the parent love feeling like it won’t be destroyed on the first expedition! If you don’t live in Arkansas, you can look up the Pocket Naturalist field guide for birds in your state.

Even just one or two of the above resources is more than enough to get started with nature study. Actually, all you really need to do to get started is step outside and pay attention, and maybe take along a notebook and a pencil! But we’ve been at this for several years now and I wanted to add to our resource collection (and convince myself that I didn’t need to buy anything new or shiny in order to do so).

So…where did I go for new FREE resources?

I went online.

Many of the paid resources I’ve seen lately were all ebooks and video courses anyway, so I thought I’d search in the same format–starting with websites specific to my home state of Arkansas.

If you’re outside of Arkansas, check out the corresponding organizations for your state.

All I asked for was the Arkansas Backyard Birds booklet, but they sent the other three as well! I suppose they figured someone like me would eventually ask for more booklets and they could save on shipping by sending them all at once.

There are two more ways I’d like to complement our focus on birds, and both can be achieved without spending a dime.

I’d like us to improve our artistic abilities in the area of drawing birds, so that our nature journal entries can better represent what we see out in the field. Enter YouTube. There are TONS of FREE video tutorials to help us hone our skills. I think we’ll get a start with watercolor painting a saucy little wren like the ones we see every day around our house.

Finally, one of the greatest gifts I can imagine giving my children when it comes to nature study is to tie God’s truth to what they see. The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and I want them to see it. I just read the Sermon on the Mount this morning, and I think we’ll incorporate Matthew 6:26 into our memory work as we observe the winged creatures around us:

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

I hope this has been helpful to you, my friends.

Do you have any other super awesome free resources for bird nature study? If you’ve studied birds already with your kids, what did your family enjoy most?

This was intended to be a “Friday Five” post, but it just makes so much more sense on a Wednesday, doesn’t it?

It’s crunch time around here. We’re planting the last shoots and seeds in our garden, planning our homeschool group’s last big event for the year, watering the trees we planted in the fall, trying to keep up with the now-regular two-hours of mowing necessary to keep ticks at bay, and–somehow–we’re going to have the house clean at the end of the month for a much-anticipated visit from my parents–a tall order since houses just don’t stay clean during gardening season. Especially if you have two little dirt magnets helpers and no mud room.

Oh yeah, and then there’s my day job: we’re still finishing up school for the year. It’s only about two more weeks, but I must admit I wouldn’t mind fast forwarding to the pool side where I sip lemonade in the shade while the boys have their swimming lessons. At least that’s what I imagine June will look like.

But I digress.

Are you in the thick of it right now? As a student? A teacher? At work? At home? Do you wonder at times how you’ll have the strength to finish the final task (or twenty) for the season?

Maybe you’ll find these scriptures as encouraging as I have. There is Truth we can rest in even as we roll up our sleeves to get the job done.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable.
He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

Jesus in Matthew 11:28

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

1 Corinthians 15:55-58

‘O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Galatians 6:9

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

Colossians 1:9-14

For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Let God’s word be your sweet lemonade in the midst of a busy season. Sip slowly. Be refreshed. And finish strong.

When you struggle to find the motivation and energy to see a project or season through to the end, what scriptures do you turn to? What truths do you savor?

Today seems like an appropriate time to write my first “Friday Five” post. After all, it’s not every year that the first Friday of the fifth month falls on the fifth day of the fifth month. If I were really good, I’d have posted this at five this morning.

Don’t you just love the alliteration?

It’s my hope that “The Friday Five” will be a fun addition to the blog. Some weeks it may be five related things, and other weeks it may be five completely random things. And, just being real, some weeks it may be non-existent because life happens. But when I do get to eek out one of these list posts, I plan to include spiritual encouragement, practical tips, personal anecdotes, and much more.

For now, we can call this a “Special Events” edition. Here goes!

My boys recently participated in their first musical stage play, “No Strings Attached: The Musical Adventures of Pinocchio.” They had a fantastic time playing 19th-century school boys, donkeys, a marionette, and singing fish. They were the youngest in the production, so the five-hour-long dress rehearsal was pretty exhausting for them (and their parents), but they absolutely had a blast.
When the last performance was over, our five-year-old shed a few tears. I assured him that he would have the opportunity to be in another play sometime, but he was quite upset that it would likely not be Pinocchio again. “I like THIS play!”
He later had a dream that they did the play again, and he reported the following morning with a beaming smile, “It was the most wonderful dream!”

Pink eye isn’t exactly the kind of visitor that you usually want to celebrate as a “special event,” but it’s been a guest at our house for a couple weeks this spring so it’s at least worth a mention. We’ve had pretty good luck getting rid of it by mixing a 1/2 teaspoon boric acid in one cup boiled water. Once it has completely cooled, you can place a few drops into each eye. We had our kiddos lay down on a table and close their eyes while we dripped a bit of the water onto each eye near the tear duct. Then they could open their eyes so that the water could come in. This is way easier than holding a spoon over open and very frightened eyes.

I invited my local Scholé Sisters group over for a Nature Study Day at our place. We live on seven mostly-treed acres, have a creek running through our property, and last fall seeded a part of our land for wildflowers. We feel so blessed to have such a lovely slice of creation right outside our door, and it was so much fun to share it with friends! We identified trees and flowers, had a picnic lunch, and the kids spent the rest of the time playing in the creek. Having other curious moms around with their various field guides also meant that we now know a little bit more about what’s growing on our land than we did before.

We also had our last day of co-op classes a week ago. In the first hour, my youngest got a cookie in his Hands-on-Science class, and my oldest enjoyed a cupcake complete with his own personally-decorated edible stamp for his Stamping Through History class. As if that weren’t enough of an end-of-year celebration, the much-anticipated Book Club Party awaited them after recess. Each family was to choose a favorite book and bring a snack and an activity to share with the whole elementary group. We settled on Stuart Little the morning of, and I like to think our little table-top presentation turned out alright considering the high level of procrastination. After so much excitement the kids fell fast asleep in the van while I ran errands.
Unfortunately when we got to the library and I actually had to get out of the van and take the kids with me, my little guy didn’t wake up happy and said he didn’t feel that well. I knew we only needed to go inside for five minutes, so I carried him–the five-year-old on my right arm, purse and bag of books on my left. Well, that did it, apparently. Just as we stepped up to the front door of the public library the poor little man puked all over my left side. And my purse. And on the bag of books. And all over the steps.

Maybe eating all those cheese cubes after an equally large amount of sugary treats wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Again, I wouldn’t normally consider sharing a puke story as part of a “special event,” but how often do I get to be “that mom” with the sick kid who just made a horrid mess for everyone else to walk through? I’m at least hoping this was a “special” occasion–and not a new norm.
And, when I think about it, I am so incredibly thankful that the mess happened outside where a kind man washed it off with a few buckets of water. A few more steps and it would have been inside the library itself: on the carpet, smelling up the whole place for who-knows-how-long. Or it could have happened in the van. God was merciful. And I was thankful. With no fever and the sick feeling lasting only about six hours, I also thanked the Lord that this was apparently just a response to way too much junk food and not a virus.
Our last day of co-op sure was fun–a real blowout!

This isn’t a last-but-not-least kind of #5. No, this is a save-the-best-for-last #5. Ten years ago today it was Saturday. I was studying for the last finals week of my senior year of college. Later that afternoon, I played paintball with a few friends, including this guy named Nathaniel. After the game we all returned to campus and discussed dinner plans. My dad had told me to go to a local Italian restaurant to try a few dishes so he could plan for an after-graduation lunch for our family and close friends when they would all be up for the ceremony the following weekend, so I lamented that I wouldn’t be joining the group for dinner. Nathaniel said he had a project to work on. We all parted ways.
But an hour later Nathaniel asked if he could borrow my camera for this project of his. I obliged.
After cleaning up for the evening, I grabbed some books to study at a local coffee shop after dinner and headed to the restaurant. I asked for the manager, just as my dad had instructed, and she curiously led me to a table in the back. A table set for two. A table where a cleaned-up Nathaniel sat with his Bible open to the verse that says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing…”
After a few nervous words and a question from him, I said, “Yes.” And he said he loved me for the first time. He pulled out a ring and my camera.A “project”, huh?!?

If I had known what his “project” was, I would have probably worn some make-up. 😉

How about you? Any special happenings or celebrations lately? Any “special” visitors or messes?

And who would have thought that it would come from two very different experiences happening on the same day?

I’ve posted before about the initial struggles I had with our math curriculum. Since that first-year learning curve, it’s been pretty smooth sailing. Until this week.

Our curriculum made some huge leaps this week, as far as I’m concerned. My oldest son struggled with two separate lessons that took his addition skills and subtraction skills up a few notches. And by a few notches, I mean like FIVE. There were some tears, and I decided to split his work for one lesson over two days. “Short lessons” is one of many principles of education promoted by Charlotte Mason, a British educator at the turn of the 20th century, whose methods I have been reading about in For the Children’s Sake.

We would revisit his worksheet tomorrow, I said. In the mean time, I did some digging.

Looking back over our lessons, I realized that while the jump in addition may simply be larger than I agree is appropriate (at least for a child who is young-for-grade-level), the leap in subtraction was mostly difficult for two reasons:

I didn’t exactly understand what I was to be teaching, since it is something that simply isn’t taught in a traditional approach to elementary math (let me know if any of you are used to learning to mentally subtract two-digit numbers with borrowing BEFORE learning the pencil-and-paper algorithm, k?). Once I did MY homework, however, and began to really understand the strategies for myself, I realized that I had made things more complicated than they were intended to be.

The curriculum did not focus on subtraction for nearly 30 lessons! Sure, there was occasional practice in a warm up or on a review sheet, but the concepts were not discussed in the slightest. I had to realize that the lessons alone were NOT sufficient to prepare my son for the challenge of mental subtraction with borrowing. But, as I examined my text book, they weren’t intended to. Our curriculum, you see, is more than lessons–it includes many suggested math games and facts practice sheets. The lessons introduce new material. The games provide the bulk of the practice. But we rarely played the games if they weren’t already included in a lesson’s activities.

My conclusion from this negative experience is that I’ve been too focused on getting to the next lesson. Or to the next child on a given day. My son is slow to get his work done, so we’ve not had time leftover for games. Instead of seeing that as a hint to slow down, take a day off for a “Game Day”, and build the skills that would help him work faster, I’ve plowed forward, getting us further in the book but not necessarily further in skills and understanding.

As all of that was sinking in this morning, I had the pleasure of a very positive experience with my younger son.

Today I got to introduce my five-year-old to “one-thousand”. Place value may not seem that exciting to adults, but when you’re five, and you’re the little guy, it’s pretty exhilarating to finally feel like you are catching up with your big brother. After the concepts were introduced, one of the exercises was to write in his math journal “5000 dogs”, “8000 pigs”, “3000 cats”, etc. This little man is just beginning reading lessons, and we’ve been stuck pretty much at the beginning. He often forgets his letters and their sounds, and the idea that sounds, once identified, can be blended together to form words has been pretty much lost on him.

But today…

I helped him say each sound of each word in turn, then write the correct letter. He actually guessed the letters correctly most of the time. Then we worked on sounding out the words he’d written. He blended sounds together rather painlessly for the first time ever!

We were both thrilled!

He happily copied his name and the words “can read!” right next to where I had written them on his paper. A math lesson turned into our most successful reading lesson yet!

We were so excited and felt so full that it seemed silly to do anything more! In the past, if we had made some progress on reading I would have thought “more is better” and pressed on to do the next lesson–or at least tried to re-focus us on finishing the math lesson. But today I realized that the joy of learning is the ultimate goal. And I saw very clearly how pushing for more would have ruined the moment for both me and my son.

It made me wonder: How often has my son had a “moment” in his learning, but I didn’t detect it? How often have I squelched his joy in learning by trying to move ahead too quickly?

With my oldest’s recent painful math lessons, I saw how my desire to “finish this today” and “check off a box and move on” over the past several months has done him a disservice. We would have done much better to have played more games by insisting on less arbitrary “progress”. Behold, the negative effects of ignoring Charlotte Mason’s concept of short lessons.

Once I got around to my second-born, I was ready to put the rubber to the road, and we had the incredibly awesome experience of seeing the joy of learning spill over into the rest of the day because we didn’t bury it in any more school work.

Less is more. Especially when you’re five. And maybe even in your thirties, but that’s another post for another day.

We are forging ahead, but our destination is now a more distant consideration. Stopping to smell the proverbial roses along the way is now on my list of “objectives”.

I have learned today that I am teaching a child, my child–not a subject or a curriculum. I’ve heard others say that before, but now I own it by experience.

Any other teachers or homeschool mamas out there? Have you had this “a-ha” moment, too? If you’re into Charlotte Mason’s philosophies, how has implementing the principle of short lessons helped you and your students?

My husband and I each knew we’d homeschool our kids before we ever met and married. And while in one sense you could say we’ve been “homeschooling” all along since our first child was born, it has only been this past year—when my oldest turned five—that we have “officially” begun to get our feet wet with more intentional schooling. Having looked forward to teaching my children at home for many years, I felt quite confident and had certain high expectations. Below, I reveal how it all has panned out.

Things I’ve Learned in Our First Year of Homeschooling:

Homeschooling is both easy and hard. It is both delightfully fun and, at times, painfully stressful. It seems it is like any other worthwhile pursuit. It takes time. It takes work. Blood, sweat, and tears. And prayer—lots and lots of prayer. I knew it would be work, but now I know it is work!

Daily discipline is probably the hardest thing. We don’t exactly at this point have our days perfectly laid out. I don’t even have our meals ready at the same time each day (working on that)! But this work is worth it, and I know the discipline will come in time, with practice. That’s essentially what discipline is, isn’t it? Practicing the right things over and over and over. Training (myself, in this case) to do what is right and to do it at the appropriate time. I’m learning right along with my kids.

I have so much more respect and appreciation for classroom teachers. I volunteered to teach a Spanish class for our homeschool co-op. I only had a class of about 14 children, but they ranged in age from five to nine years old. I can now sympathize with my public and private school counterparts on a few things:

1) Lesson planning takes a lot of work! I only had to plan five 45-minute classes—and they were spread out with at least a week between each one—but it was still a lot of work! I’m sure it gets easier to find a rhythm once you’ve done the same class for more than one year and have already done much of the preliminary planning, but I now have a small taste of just what goes into preparing for a class (minus any regulatory paperwork—you have my deepest sympathy, there).

2) Even when you think you’ve made the perfect plans, kids can highjack your attention and throw you all kinds of wrenches! Not the least of which is simply saying straight-up, “I really don’t want to do that.” I know how to handle those kinds of situations with my own children, but in a classroom setting?!?!? Which leads me to…

3) Maintaining discipline and order in the classroom is extremely challenging. I’m not sure if the fact that these were young homeschooled kids made this aspect more or less difficult.

4) Maintaining the interest and attention of students, especially when each one may be at a different level of development or understanding, is quite difficult.

5) It is truly a delight when you hear from parents that a kid loved your class, has been practicing what he’s learned, thinks you’re the best teacher ever, and can’t wait for the next class! Yeah, so that one isn’t a negative. That’s what every teacher wants to hear! And it makes those moments when you want to pull your hair out worth it. Whether it’s in a public, private, or co-op classroom, consider this my hat tip to you, my teacher friends.

Sometimes my personality and preferences will clash with what my child needs. I was excited at first about the math curriculum we had chosen because it offered so much hands-on learning, which both my husband and I thought was important for forming a basic understanding of math and how it works. What I didn’t expect was the semi-scripted lessons telling me I had to cut this out, make copies of that, and grab a small pile of different manipulatives or stacks of cards each day to accompany our lessons. Nor did I foresee the fact that my desire for efficiency would struggle with the concept of doing something with manipulatives just for the sake of “experiencing” math. Yes, I get that the purpose is for the child to have a greater understanding, but is it really necessary for him to make nearly forty “hundreds cards” that he will only use once?

The concepts and strategies taught in this curriculum are different than I learned growing up, and they feel a bit extraneous at times. I’m a bit more of a math traditionalist, and I liked math just fine that way. Numbers and symbols are concrete to me, so working with abstractions early on just seemed insane. But, I’m learning that…

Math is more than facts and rules. And it’s more fun this way. The goal, I have slowly come to realize, is to learn the concepts and the facts while simultaneously gaining a deep understanding and appreciation for them—and we’re even learning to do more mental math than I’m used to doing as an adult! So I now see the value in all the “extras” that fill up our lessons.

It is an opportunity to die to myself in service to another. I’m not particularly patient, and I like to get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time possible. So the lessons still sometimes annoy me. And while homeschooling certainly affords me the freedom to build or find a curriculum that works for both my teaching style and my child’s learning style (read: I don’t HAVE to stick with this curriculum!), I am also responsible to do what I truly feel is best for my child, even if it means I have to swallow my pride, deny my own tendency toward laziness and high efficiency (the two go together, don’t they?), and press on with a program that my child enjoys and which is indeed challenging him to think in new ways and make his own discoveries as he explores the world of mathematics.

I can’t wait until we can switch over to Saxon 54 (our plan all along) and my boys can work independently on math in a more disciplined and traditional way, but what we’re doing now will give them a great grasp on the how and why of math, which I think will be a great foundation on which to build! The struggle is worth it. I can learn to adapt for their sakes.

A little stick-to-it-iveness goes a long way. I started and stopped this particular math curriculum twice already (“trying” it the first two times involved one two-week stint in the beginning before giving up on part-whole circles, and another four-day “trial” five months later). This third time around, I’m motivated by the fact that if we’d just paused at part-whole circles, given it a week to be mastered, and then jumped right back in, we’d be on to the next grade-level by now.

My attitude changes everything. I let on right away my disgust for the cheesy little kids songs used to teach some early math equations, how to write numbers, etc. For the record, I’m not a fan of most little kids’ music. I found that very quickly my children shared my sentiment, and we gave up on the songs. When the program introduced part-whole circles before introducing written math equations, I stiffened up, made a bewildered face, said, “What?!?”, and then my son didn’t like them either (and probably lost any interest in trying to figure them out). And this is why we threw in the towel the first time. I think my attitude made all the difference in the world.

Now, having reintroduced things a second and third time with a much better attitude, and having worked with my son to conquer part-whole circles (we did introduce equations first), he now comments on how much he loves part-whole circles (and now we all seem to love those cheesy math songs! Both my boys beg for me to put the cd on!). I set the tone. I can be the greatest help or the greatest hindrance to my child’s learning. Attitude is everything.

What I assumed would be the easiest subject turned out to be the most difficult. I’m not done with that math curriculum yet! Can you see that math has been my Achilles’ heel this year? I sure didn’t expect that when I started the year with a child who loved math and seemed to be pretty good at it! But neither of us had done a formal curriculum, so we each had quite the learning curve. That boy still loves math and is indeed good at it, but I have had to learn that just because he’s got a good mind for it doesn’t mean he will pick everything up on the first try (or even the second). He’s only five for crying out loud! The process is still line upon line, precept upon precept, a little here, a little there. My prideful expectation that my son would be a supernatural wiz kid in math and always understand everything the first time I introduced it to him had to be slammed down. Not because my son is any dummy, but because I was being the dummy! Math has been the hardest subject for me, not for him, because it has been the thing that has most upset my expectations. Praise God for upsetting my expectations!

Treating this as a practice year has been incredibly important for my sanity. My son’s birthday falls right on the cutoff date. He could have started kindergarten this year in the public schools, and if we were sending him there, we’d have signed the waiver to keep him home an extra year so that he’d be the oldest in his class rather than the youngest. So, that’s just what we did as homeschoolers—instead of filing an Intent to Homeschool form, we just filed our paperwork to waive kindergarten. But as far as I was concerned, we were starting kindergarten at home. So I jumped in with a great reading program, that math curriculum I have already loved on so much in this article, and a plan to read lots of good books together. While we’ve really had a successful year, and there was math learning going on in the five months after we initially dropped the curriculum (mostly learning and practicing addition and subtraction facts with dollar store workbooks—not a bad method, might I add), I still felt like I had cheated my son of so much more in math since I didn’t stick with the program. I wish I had just done it. Take a break where needed for extra practice, but then keep going. But I didn’t. And here we are starting up again in lesson twenty-something at the end of the school year. Never mind that it’s at an advanced kindergarten/traditional first grade level. Never mind that many kids would be starting kindergarten at five and half or nearly six years old—so the only reason I feel behind is because of where my son’s birthday falls relative to an arbitrary start date. I still felt like I was behind.

Then Nathaniel and I discussed what we should do with the paperwork this year. I had already been treating my son as a kindergartener in our homeschool group, even though we waived kindergarten as far as the state was concerned. We could file our first Intent to Homeschool form this summer with a kindergarten designation or a first grade designation. Our homeschool group wanted us to give them the same designation. So I was torn. But as we discussed it and as I heard from another mom who has all her babies in either July or August, she just always signed them up as the lowest grade level that fit their age. That way, they could go at their own pace, as far ahead as they needed to be, but if they weren’t advanced or were even a little slow in some areas, they could also proceed at their own pace without undue pressure. So we made the decision then and there to declare our son as starting kindergarten next year.

It’s such an arbitrary designation, really, but it has taken a huge weight off of my shoulders! Instead of feeling like I had to scrap any hopes of picking up where we left off with the math program because we were already too far behind, it freed me to evaluate the situation in terms of: What do I really think would be the best course of action so that my son will really get it when it comes to math? What will give him the best foundation? Taking the pressure off of me to keep up with some mythical standard I had set up for myself allowed me to focus on my child and take that pressure off of him as well. What a beautifully freeing thing!

Summer Break is there for a reason. I had originally thought we’d school year-round. I thought if we kept at it all year, then we could just take breaks whenever “life” happened throughout the year. And while that is a wonderful blessing of homeschooling, I have found in this our first year that, as we move into the summer months, “life” just tends to happen more often. There are more outdoor activities, swimming lessons, late family evenings, road trips to take, and home projects demanding our attention. So, even though we are somewhat continuing our more formal studies (math and reading, in particular), summer has broken up our routine of its own accord, and I am just going to roll with it and enjoy summer as a fun time to learn especially by doing, and by doing fun things together as a family. And I certainly don’t mind the down time beside the pool while the boys learn to swim. 😉

Even when life slows us down, we still have put in a lot of work this year. My oldest son has learned to read. My youngest has decided he knows how to read, too, but that’s another story. The boys have developed a love for science and history and telling stories and building their own enormous creations out of their train set and Legos and blocks and toilet paper rolls. We have enjoyed and memorized several poems and passages of scripture. We have settled into our math program and are enjoying it, firmly committed this time, and growing in our understanding together. We’ve gotten plugged in to our local homeschool group and have thoroughly enjoyed the new relationships it is providing. And, to whom it may concern, we have logged well over 180 days of school. Not bad for a “practice” run. 😉

How about you? What do you remember from your first year of homeschooling? And what lessons have you learned along the way since then? I’d love to hear from you!